My laptop says it's 2 22 AM and all I can hear is a compulsion called my roommate snoring as if he is making all his desperate effort to keep all the mosquitoes of Kolkata away from us. I think you must have guessed by now why I named my roommate my compulsion as this 'his' clearly suggests about his gender.Else why on earth would I prefer another creature like me within such a close proximity as if I was not enough.Anyway I have just come from office,started washing my face and getting ready to take my dinner.But the calmness around sans the effort of my friend as a mosquito repellent,sort of lured me to grab the moment and spend with just my inner self.
Sit back, peeped outside the window and the darkness ensured it to be the part of the day when sun is done with his duty for this part of the world.Then a weird thought tried to invade a dull territory of the laziest and most inept organ of my body(No guesses please as that organ would be my brain). I just thought to myself that it's been 27 years that I have been told to be in deep sleep at this hour but I don't think I am feeling anything which will remotely be called sleepy.
Since ages,our actions are getting dictated by the people around us and they in turn are also clueless about why they are following them. We are taught about doing everything in a certain way and that includes our feelings too.Like we should be in a mood to freak out on a Friday evening, sleepy on a Saturday or feel like working on a Monday. We even set the age for love, marriage and study. If the digit called your age shows something like 18, we should have infatuations and if that same thing happens at 27,it is interpreted in a different way. This is mere an example but if I dwell,I can come up with many more. So what is it? Even I never thought of it before,taking for granted that some "whys'" in life are never meant to be asked.
I looked at the watch again and this time it has changed its appearance which I am learned to read as 2 44AM. Its been 20 minutes that I have been thinking about this.I looked at the watch again and got a bit confused as to how this small device have such a great control on our life. I mean how can something which is invented by some human and which needs our assistance to work,be the most important part of our life and sometime that even decides our fate. Is it really the set of numbers that the watch represents,dictate our life or our interpretation of those numbers? I think the later is true and in that case ,what exactly have we got from it? Is our life getting better with confining it in a boundary called 'time'?
Well,I think not.
Then the whole perception of time seemed wrong to me. I feel this is not time that is moving rather it's we who are moving. This whole is a relative thing where we feel as if time is passing by but may be it's us who are moving and time is standing still. Time is like the umpteen poles that we pass when travelling in a train.We see only that many which cross us till we stop travelling. But there are poles ahead,till eternity which we are not destined to witness. I think to myself,has the time been moving, it would not have been so predictable.But is the whole mankind a fool and me sitting all to myself when it is about to daybreak,is the only intelligent person? On a lighter note,I doubt even more as I heard somewhere that brain works a bit slower at this part of a day.
So why have we become slaves of something which is made by one of us and the irony is,we have been doing it since the evolution in some way or the other. I think its because of the inherent quality of all us to possess something or may be the desire to own everything that we pass on. So we started naming those innumerable poles we passed on,while on a journey called life. we named it 'time' and divided it in to fractions called years,months,days and so on. But in the process of naming those poles and owning them,we forgot the crux of the very intention of doing it.And that is holding on to a moment.We cared the least about each and every moment as this years, months ,days are taught to be the most important part of life. We started living the years, in my case its 27 but when I asked how much,all I can think of is this 20/30 mins that I have spent now. May be I had some more but they are too old and too less as compared to this digit that represents my age.
So the next time I complain about time travelling too fast then probably I need to hold back,ask myself to live the moment because may be its me who is travelling too fast as 'time' never has control on it.
Anyway,it's 3 now and and I am feeling something which can be called sleepy.
Good night
Sambit
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
A regret called Slumdog millionaire
Yesterday when I was watching an action packed hollywood thriller,I found my roommate pretty vexed as he was dwelling on the hows' which I think were never meant to be understood and me,being a true bollywood fan suggested him which came to my mouth bypassing the brain "These are movies, dimag mat laga". The reply was pretty obvious though and it was "abey (some unmentionable words) this is a hollymood movie and that is why mein dimag laga raha hun" . Don't fret about the hinglish here as its an epitome of an progressive Indian society now, however why I am saying all this is because I am taking this space here to write down something about a movie called Slumdog Millionaire which definitely is a hollywood movie and as always we all Indians are trying to posses it.We are in a state of euphoria after the recognitions in GG like we did in the past for people like Bobby Jindal, sunita williams and mittals, just to name a few.
I am not really applying my pretty nonexistent logical brain here for the movie,nor I am trying to go deep in to thinking about the relevance of the story with real life as i think a movie is always a bit larger than life. How a slum dweller speaks pure British English or how he talks to the client in a call center when others were busy trying their luck for " who wants to be a millionaire" are some of the things which left me a bit confused but what really concerned me more is the reason that lured this bunch of Westerners to come down to India or rather to the filthy side of India to make a movie.It is making me a bit apprehensive too as it is getting all the global recognition and attention which means,the movie is going to be watched by people across the globe and those who watch will see the movie through the characters not caring much about the man who perceived it.I agree that 40% of Indians are under poverty line but there are 60% left whose number is even more than the entire population of all the so called first world countries on earth and they are not in anyway near to the people shown in the movie. Here is a movie where each and every person is corrupt,inhuman and having no morale values, this includes a millionaire too, yes I am talking about Anil kapoor and the only good people shown are the ones from United States who show a little bit of America to a barbaric Indian by their philanthropy,well this gives an idea how loyal the English are to the Americans as after all the captain of the ship is an English.
All said and done, the movie is an international hit and may make some of the Indian faces familiar with the world but at the end of the day if we think about the perception the movie will leave with,about India of course is horrible. Right from torture in custody,communal violence, faulty education system, no access to sanitation ,child abuse to many more along the line which will only make the perception of India from a third world snake charmer's country to a hungry and poor country which lives in slums.Trust me I am not an escapist and I am also not shying away from the fact that we have a problem at hand,a herculean task .We are dealing with it and pretty sure one day we will overcome it too like we did many in the past.
I believe,a pure personal thought though,that a Lagaan or Taare can never make it to the international arena but a salam bombay, mother India or in this case Slumdog can always rise to the highest level. Is it just a coincidence or because it shows an India that struggles with all the odds? I think it succeeded because it showed exactly what others want to see and satiates the new found fetish that the Westerners developed for the so called life in slum which makes them feel better or superior .No wonder the story of these people have already started replacing the growth story of our country in CNN and BBC.
For me Slumdog is a good movie but I just can't feel good about it.I crave to see the day when we stop eyeing on an Oscar,stop possessing something which never were ours' and may be then a story of a progressing Indian with dreams to touch the sky in the eyes will be the the most talked about one across the globe.I just hope as I think hope is a wonderful thing or may be the best of things which gives us a reason to wait for tomorrow, a better tomorrow.
Cheers
Sambit
I am not really applying my pretty nonexistent logical brain here for the movie,nor I am trying to go deep in to thinking about the relevance of the story with real life as i think a movie is always a bit larger than life. How a slum dweller speaks pure British English or how he talks to the client in a call center when others were busy trying their luck for " who wants to be a millionaire" are some of the things which left me a bit confused but what really concerned me more is the reason that lured this bunch of Westerners to come down to India or rather to the filthy side of India to make a movie.It is making me a bit apprehensive too as it is getting all the global recognition and attention which means,the movie is going to be watched by people across the globe and those who watch will see the movie through the characters not caring much about the man who perceived it.I agree that 40% of Indians are under poverty line but there are 60% left whose number is even more than the entire population of all the so called first world countries on earth and they are not in anyway near to the people shown in the movie. Here is a movie where each and every person is corrupt,inhuman and having no morale values, this includes a millionaire too, yes I am talking about Anil kapoor and the only good people shown are the ones from United States who show a little bit of America to a barbaric Indian by their philanthropy,well this gives an idea how loyal the English are to the Americans as after all the captain of the ship is an English.
All said and done, the movie is an international hit and may make some of the Indian faces familiar with the world but at the end of the day if we think about the perception the movie will leave with,about India of course is horrible. Right from torture in custody,communal violence, faulty education system, no access to sanitation ,child abuse to many more along the line which will only make the perception of India from a third world snake charmer's country to a hungry and poor country which lives in slums.Trust me I am not an escapist and I am also not shying away from the fact that we have a problem at hand,a herculean task .We are dealing with it and pretty sure one day we will overcome it too like we did many in the past.
I believe,a pure personal thought though,that a Lagaan or Taare can never make it to the international arena but a salam bombay, mother India or in this case Slumdog can always rise to the highest level. Is it just a coincidence or because it shows an India that struggles with all the odds? I think it succeeded because it showed exactly what others want to see and satiates the new found fetish that the Westerners developed for the so called life in slum which makes them feel better or superior .No wonder the story of these people have already started replacing the growth story of our country in CNN and BBC.
For me Slumdog is a good movie but I just can't feel good about it.I crave to see the day when we stop eyeing on an Oscar,stop possessing something which never were ours' and may be then a story of a progressing Indian with dreams to touch the sky in the eyes will be the the most talked about one across the globe.I just hope as I think hope is a wonderful thing or may be the best of things which gives us a reason to wait for tomorrow, a better tomorrow.
Cheers
Sambit
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